A gripping action suspense thriller about a forcibly retired FBI agent, Dave Drexler. He is now living a quiet, single man’s existence, hidden in the bush of the West Virginia hills. They called it retirement, but Dave considered it the sack. How could it be anything else? He wanted to stay!

But even after nearly three years gone, someone has come hunting for him. They want him dead. But who wants him dead? In his time in the Agency, he and made plenty of enemies, but now, after all this time? Why?

It all starts and goes bad when he is halfway through his after-breakfast coffee. One of his outside proximity alarms goes off. Even though Dave had left the FBI, he was still untrusting, and what do a few battery-powered proximity alarms cost? Especially for some peace of mind? The computer image showed two rough-looking guys on the track across the river, the track to the point on the trail that overlooked his cabin. They weren’t carrying backpacks, so a hunting trip was out, but they both had scoped hunting rifles. They had come to kill something? Him?

He places a dummy in his outside porch chair then partially hides it with a thin summer shade screen, just as the proximity alarm goes off again. He thought it would be their backup. It wasn’t. It was a lady with a pack, clearly out for an enjoyable hike to the top of the ridge. He suspects she is going to see a murder, and if she does, they will kill her; they would have no choice. They would not want a witness to his killing. He sets out across the river to the track, just to save the hiker, and hears their guns go off up at the point that overlooks his cabin. That can only be them firing at the dummy he had planted on his cabins’ porch. All doubts are now erased.

It was him they had come to kill.

He reaches the lookout, but they have gone, taking the lady into the bush. He follows the trail and comes across them and the lady, one of them raping her, the other one stripped and ready. The odds were wrong, two on one, so he evens the odds, leaving the older guy who appeared to be in charge, now ready for questioning. Dave wants answers. Silence is not an option.

But the complication is the lady. She is terrified. Dave calms her, telling her he will take her to his home for a shower and food, and then take her back to her car. She agrees and watches as Dave brutally extracts answers. The cold, dispassionate way he does that scares her, but she also wants to know why she was a target.

The answers surprise Dave. He has never heard of them? But Dave is still an FBI man at heart and he knows this is just the start. He will now have to work his way up the criminal tree. Something the FBI is uniquely good at. And the rescued lady was a revelation as well. Maggie, a nurse, begins a tentative friendship that quickly deepens. It is late, and Maggie stays the night, knowing she had already developed a deep, trusting bond with Dave. But when morning comes, Maggie has to go home to Washington and Dave has to start his climb up the tree. If he doesn’t, the next time, they just might send someone that has brains instead of balls.

No one ever expected to see Dave Deadbolt Drexler again!